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Returning from Sun & Fun a few
weeks ago, I had stopped in Asheville NC to pick up my wife and see my
dad. It had rained really hard while I was in Lakeland and I suspect
some water penetrated the TKS panels on the wings (Mooney Rocket). Flew
back to the U.P. of MI non-stop at FL 180 until about Lake Michigan where I
needed FL 220 to stay out of clouds and significant icing. (N1017L for
those Flight Aware addicts).
About 10 minutes before penetrating
the precip I turned the TKS on to high mode and after a couple minutes, no
fluid? Looked at the control panel and no lights; looked at the circuit
breaker and it had popped. I tried it again and it popped after about 30
seconds. Oh crap! Reset breaker and tried de-ice on low mode,
and it ran fine. Luckily it ran enough fluid to keep the ice off through
the 30 minute decent. When I was a couple minutes from breaking out
(based on my home bas KIMT AWOS report), I tried high mode again and
it worked fine. As noted above, I suspect a bit of water in the panels had
froze up in the flight levels, and the "low" TKS power setting must have done
the trick.
Now, what if I had "fuses" located out of
reach??
Will be wiring up the IVPT soon and using
breakers. It is still up to the operator to use enough common sense to
keep a breaker system safe.
Tom
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